Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Why You Do Not Trade Andy Sonnanstine

There was more to the article about the Rays organization's starting pitching posted last week, but it just became way too long. Consider this a continuation of that article, but with a different way of measuring how our starters performed this past year.

The questions I want to answer here are: Which Rays' starting pitchers pitched at the level of a #1 starter in 2008? Who was a #2 (at their level)? Who was a #3? And so forth. Was James Shields a "true number one starter"? What about Andy Sonnanstine? What was Edwin Jackson? Wade Davis? Alex Cobb? In our organization, the list goes on and on.

To answer these questions we first need to know: What is a #1-#5 starter? Luckily, Matthew Carruthon answered this in his article Rotation Slots by tRA+ at StatCorner. I'll let you read all the details and methodology used, but based on 2007-8 data he found the following:

#1 SP = tRA+ of 118 or higher, the average #1 has a 130 tRA+.#2 SP = tRA+ from 106 to 117, the average #2 has a 112 tRA+.#3 SP = tRA+ from 95 to 105, the average #3 has a 100 tRA+.#4 SP = tRA+ from 86 to 94, the average #4 has a 91 tRA+.#5 SP = tRA+ of 85 or lower, the average #5 has a 76 tRA+.

Using those numbers as our guidelines, let's take a look at the starting pitchers in the Rays system and see how well they pitched in 2008. Remember, StatCorner only covers down to full-season A ball, so there are no Hudson Valley, Princeton, DSL or VSL players (click the links to see stats for those pitchers). The data does not include innings pitched as a reliever, only as a starter. Age is as of today and pitchers are listed by level, so some appear more than once.

xIP: Derived from xOuts, "xOuts stands for the expected number of outs a pitcher has generated based on his defense and park neutral outcomes." This is how much they pitched.

tRA: "tRA involves assigning run and out values to all events under a pitcher's control and coming up with an expected number of runs allowed and outs generated in a defense and park neutral environment. tRA is on a R/9 scale and does not involve any regression of the rates so while it should be more useful at determining a pitcher's true talent level, the best method for pitching projection is to use tRA*, the regressed version of tRA." This is how well they pitched.

tRA+: "tRA+ is equal to [((lgTRA - tRA) / lgTRA) + 1] * 100. A tRA+ of 150 represents that the pitcher's tRA was 50% better than league average. A tRA+ of 75 means the pitcher's tRA was 25% worse than average." This is how well they pitched relative to the rest of their respective leagues.

2008 #1-Level Starters:

Pitcher

Age

Level

xIP

tRA+

Hellickson, Jeremy

21.6

A+

76.7

148

Price, David

23.2

A+

33.3

142

AVERAGE #1 SP

xxxx

xxxx

xxxx

130

Talbot, Mitch

25.0

AAA

164.8

127

Davis, Wade

23.2

AAA

52.6

127

Sonnanstine, Andy

25.6

MLB

198.8

122

Price, David

23.2

AA

54.0

122

Shields, James

26.8

MLB

212.6

121

Cummings, Jeremy

32.0

AAA

81.7

120

We need to find a place on the big league roster (pen) for Talbot, and soon for Davis. Hellickson just dominated High-A. Not a bad first year for Price, pitched like a #1 at two levels and a #2 at a third. Cummings is a minor league free agent. Do not trade Andy Sonnanstine.

2008 #2-Level Starters:

Pitcher

Age

Level

xIP

tRA+

Rollins, Heath

23.4

A+

123.8

116

Davis, Wade

23.2

AA

105.6

113

Price, David

23.2

AAA

18.7

113

AVERAGE #2 SP

xxxx

xxxx

xxxx

112

Garza, Matt

24.9

MLB

181.2

111

Darcy, Jesse

23.3

A

102.5

111

Rollins, Heath

23.4

AA

23.0

110

Niemann, Jeff

25.7

AAA

127.9

109

McGee, Jacob

22.3

AA

74.6

108

Rollins handled his promotion well, and Davis improved when he moved up to AAA. Darcy was a little old for Low-A ball, but he had a good year and I think he's undervalued. It seems that trading the bat-flipper was a good idea. Niemann is ready in case of injury, and McGee didn't pitch too poorly considering his elbow was going out.

2008 #3-Level Starters:

Pitcher

Age

Level

xIP

tRA+

Kazmir, Scott

24.8

MLB

147.7

103

Hellickson, Jeremy

21.6

AA

73.6

102

AVERAGE #3 SP

xxxx

xxxx

xxxx

100

Houser, James

23.8

AA

88.9

100

Morse, Ryan

25.4

A+

102.9

98

De los Santos, Richard

24.4

AA

70.6

98

Cobb, Alexander

21.1

A

129.4

96

Kazmir was our fourth best starter, that's how you win 97 games. You hear how poorly Hellickson pitched after his promotion to AA, but a #3 isn't that bad for a 21 year old, expect him to do better in AA next year. De los Santos is a minor league free agent. Houser keeps missing time due to injury and Cobb, while very young, needs to improve next year at Charlotte.

2008 #4-Level Starters:

Pitcher

Age

Level

xIP

tRA+

AVERAGE #4 SP

xxxx

xxxx

xxxx

91

Hendrickson, Ben

27.8

AAA

141.5

87

Flores, Brian

23.8

A

108.8

87

I still believe Flores has a future out of the pen. Hendrickson is a minor league free agent.

2008 #5-Level Starters:

Pitcher

Age

Level

xIP

tRA+

Ragan, Jason

25.8

A

105.1

84

Jackson, Edwin

25.2

MLB

174.8

83

Walker, Matthew

22.2

A+

41.9

83

Mann, Brandon

24.4

A+

122.2

81

Hall, Jeremy

25.1

A

94.6

80

AVERAGE #5 SP

xxxx

xxxx

xxxx

76

Gibson, Glenn

21.1

A

57.4

66

There's Mr. Jackson, I wondered where he was hiding. Ragan was released, Walker was suspended, Gibson we've discussed before, and the rest aren't worth mentioning.

If you feel I'm putting too much emphasis on 2008 numbers when analyzing our pitchers I realize that some of these are small sample sizes and that pitchers have up years and down years. And you have to take into account if a pitcher is injured (McGee, Kazmir?) or recovering from an injury. However, 2008 results are the most recent and best numbers we have to assess a pitchers value. Would looking at 2007 be better? No, but just for fun lets look at a couple of pitchers numbers from 2007: